Evidences that the mannose permease of Escherichia coli mediates the infection of N4 in early steps, were obtained as follows. First, A mutant strain of Escherichia coli which was resistant to both wild type N4 and lambda whose genome is Charon 4A containing human genomic fragments in its EcoR I site, could not use mannose efficiently. Second, N4 could not infect pel mutant strains which lack one or all of intact components of mannose permease. However, unknown alterations in N4 made it possible for the phage to infect pel mutant of E. coli. It also turned out to be clear that the receptor of N4 was different from that of lambda.